Moon of Three Rings

Oddly enough that beat of sound, of power, strengthened me as if it poured back into my slack body the essence which had ebbed since Osokun's knife had sought my life. I lay, feeling that wash into me. Some ebbed again, yes, but each receding wave left a residue behind to hearten me. I was no longer only holding on grimly to what life I had, I was once more able to think beyond my body and my own concerns.

Once more I struggled up and looked at Maelen. Her head was thrown back now, her hands raised before her. Between her two palms, pressed together, was her wand. It seemed to spin, throwing off sparks of silver which struck her head and breast and then vanished. And she was singing—not like the chant which still filled the air, but very high and sweet, notes which pulled at me.

Somehow I braced my forepaws hard against the floor of the van, and managed to raise myself. Now my eyes were level with the seat on which she sat. I glimpsed the world below; it was still night, or very early morning. The moon was no longer bright, but ahead, down, there were other lights to be seen.

That was not the yellow-red of fires, nor the blue shade of the lamps I had seen in Yrjar. Rather these were moon globes as Maelen carried, only they were not fixed but moved about as might lanterns.

And it was from that place of lights that the chanting arose, stronger and deeper. I dragged myself farther up until, it spite of the pain it cost me, I could place one foreleg across the seat, resting my head upon it. Maelen did not notice me, she was still wrapped in her singing.

Two men carrying moon globes came to meet us. I saw the white-and-yellow-patterned black robes of priests. But they did not greet Maelen or try to halt us, only stood aside one to right, one to left, and were silent as we passed between. Their faces remained impassive and they continued to chant words I did not understand.

We passed more of the priests of Umphra engaged in tasks along the road. I sniffed the stench of burning, and beneath that barsk nostrils picked up also the reek of blood. No, the Valley had not escaped the doom which had come to Yim-Sin. Yet I believed the doom had not been as complete here as it had been in the village.

The kasi turned without any outward sign of control from Maelen and we went through the gates. The portal which had hung there was splintered and scored, and in it bristled bolts from crossbows. The mist was now the smoke of destruction. We entered the first temple courtyard.

For the first time Maelen moved, raised the wand until its brilliant shaft pressed against her forehead. The light which had spun from it was gone and, as she dropped her hands once again, it was a simple rod. Her eyes opened.

A priest came to us. There was a bandage about his head, and he carried his right arm in a sling.

"Orkamor?" Maelen asked him.

"He sees to his people, Freesha."

She nodded gravely. "Evil has been wrought here. How great that evil, brother?"

"Much that was long and long in building has been broken." His voice was somber, his face drawn, with the deep-set eyes of a man who has been forced to witness the destruction of what had been very much a part of him. "But the foundations have not been destroyed."

"And who did this? They did worse in Yim-Sin."

"That they told us. As to who they were—men who have fallen under a darkness grown from seed brought from elsewhere. They have not, however, prospered in their wickedness."

"They are destroyed?"

"They destroyed themselves. For they did not heed the safeguards. Only, behind them they have left ruin."

"Those—those whom Umphra holds under his cloak—" she began, almost timidly. "How fare those, elder brother?"

"Him you hold in your heart-hand, Freesha, survives . Others—some Umphra has at last loosed upon the White Road."

She sighed. Her wand lay across her knees, her hands rubbed her forehead.

So Maquad was still alive; I clung to that much. My lassitude was creeping back. I could not find it in me to care greatly that her plan had not been swallowed after all. The pain in my breast gave me a sharp twinge, and I slipped from my half sprawl across the seat to huddle on the mat once again. It was as if my last small reserve of strength left me.

Light—shining into my face so that it smarted through the small slits between my nearly closed eyelids… I tried to turn my head away from that light, but I was held to it and I breathed in vapor which was sharply aromatic, clearing my head. I opened my eyes and found that I now lay in a room and Maelen bent over me, a bowl in her hand holding a golden liquid. From this rose the fumes which had summoned me back.

With her was another, and that old, benign face I knew. Once, a very long time ago, we had sat in a quiet garden and talked of life beyond the star which was Yiktor's sun, of how men carried out their destinies in many strange places. This was Orkamor, servant of Umphra. I tried to say his name.

"Younger brother"—his words formed in my mind– "is this your wish, truly your wish, to put off the body you now wear for another?"

Words—words—but, yes, that was my wish, of course it was! I was a man—a man! I claimed a man's body. And that rose in me as no mere desire, but as a demand which was centered with all the strength I could now summon.

"Be it as you will, then, sister, brother—"

Orkamor receded from my vision as if he floated away. Once more Maelen leaned above me, holding the bowl that its reviving fumes might clear my brain.

"Say this, Krip Vorlund, word for word: 'I wish this by the power, to put aside fur and fang, to walk again as a man!'"

"I wish—this—by—by—the power, to put aside—fur and fang—to walk—to walk again as—a man!" Triumphantly I finished that plea, wishing I could shout it aloud from some mountain top for all the world to hear.

"Drink!"

She held yet closer the bowl of aromatic liquid. I lapped at its contents eagerly. It was as cool water from a mountain stream. I had not realized how I thirsted until I swallowed. It was good—good– I drank until the bowl was emptied, until my tongue found no lingering drop.

"Now—" She put aside the bowl to bring forward one of the moon globes. And though the room had seemed light to me, yet did that lamp make it brighter.

"Look into this," she bade me. "Loose, look and loose—"

Loose? Loose what? But I set my eyes upon the globe. It was a world of silver such as one might see rise up on the visa-screen of the Lydis as she made planet-fall in a new system—a silver world reaching out—drawing one…

Who wanders on silver worlds, and what do they see there? Out of some depth that thought came to me. But this was waking not dreaming. Yet still I would not open my eyes to see, for there was a difference now and some wary part of me wished to explore that difference slowly.

I drew in a deep breath, waiting for my nose, for the barsk senses to tell me all they could. But it was as if those senses had been deadened, shriveled. There were scents, yes, the perfume of some growing thing, and others, but all weak compared to those I had known.

As yet I had not tried to move. But when I had breathed so deeply, that pain which had become so much a part of me—it was gone! Now I opened my eyes. But—distortion! Colors were less sharp in some ways, stridently screaming in others. I blinked, trying to make my surroundings return to normal. But they did not. It required effort to focus, to make my eyes once more my obedient servants. Once—once before this had happened– Memory stirred in me.

I stared ahead. There was a wide surface, a wall, and in it a window. Beyond that branches waved in the pull of the wind. My mind readily supplied names for all of these, recognized what my eyes reported, even though they saw everything differently. I opened my mouth, tried to lick sharp fangs with my tongue. But the tongue which moved there was not long, it swept across teeth—these were not the tearing implements of a barsk.